Memeorandum

April 30, 2012

Not The Twitter I Thought I Knew

As I understand this, a small group of lefties decide some conservative is racist, homophobic or whatever, flag them on Twitter for spamming, and the account is blocked. That sounds like par for the left as I understand it (like minded protestors have been disrupting campus speeches for decades), but here is what surprises me - what is going to happen when some party hack in Syria or Iran or China opens a few hundred accounts run by state loyalists and starts taking down on-line revolutionaries by flagging them for spam?

Is Twitter really going to aid in the auto-stifling of dissent? Sure sounds like it.

Captain Ed explains the benefits of the current self-policing system, but naturally that requires a level of restraint and self-discipline that we don't always associate with the internet.

BUT IT IS OK BECAUSE THEY ARE PASSIONATE! AND ANTI-WAR... Via myiq2xu (himself a lefty) we get a reminder that the pro-Obama crowd may have stifled pro-Hillary dissent back in 2008:

That was the question buzzing on a corner of the blogosphere over the last few days, after several anti-Obama bloggers were unable to update their sites, which are hosted on Google’s Blogger service.

The bloggers in question, most of them supporters of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, and all of them opposed to Senator Obama, received a notice from Google last week saying that their sites had been identified as potential “spam” blogs. “You will not be able to publish posts to your blog until we review your site and confirm that it is not a spam blog,” the Google e-mail read.

Does anyone imagine Saul Alinsky would object? This is who they are, this is what they do.

I hardly ever comment on Twitter, though I do read the comments of those I follow very regularly.

I once commented and used a hash tag (about Jessica Yellin replacing Ed Henry at CNN) in my usual snarky fashion.

I was amazed that 4 or 5 liberals came out of nowhere and flagged me for spam. I have practically zilch for followers myself, so I thought it was pretty hysterical. Poor, sorry, no life libs spending all their days and nights looking for offensive comments and hashtags! What a life (eyeroll)!

Speaking of which, the Obamao campaign has unveiled its new campaign slogan. "Forward", as in "Great Leap, The". I guess they're hoping their prospective voters can handle two syllables this time around.

Syrians are winning slowly but surely against the Assad tyranny. In the past 24 hours they hit military targets in Aleppo, Air Force intel and Military intel in Idlib, another blast in Damascus and the Central Bank for good measure.

both rush and hannity have gotten into twitter in a big way in the recent months, and rush has said on air how great it is that he can now call on his twitter army to get out his messages out when needed. so I guess we can start counting down until he will be tagged a spammer, if he hasn't been already.

It's also got better up to date headlines than any combination of outlets anywhere. The scoop starts at Twitter.

Yes, Jane. I am always amazed at the amount of time it takes for Twitter breaking news to hit the big news websites. Drudge always lags way behind Twitter and he is often ahead of traditional news outlets.

Almost all of the reporters have twitter accounts. The news breaks on twitter faster than it does your normal news services. You have to be careful though. Lots of rumors are repeated and turn out not true.

I can wait an extra couple of minutes and avoid yet another distraction.

Hear, hear! While I speak from ignorance, as my only contact with Twitter is when someone links to a particular item, I would imagine the signal-noise ratio is pretty low. Blogs are already enough of a distraction.

But as was pointed out, Twitter will implode if it doesn't prevent this sort of thing from happening. Blocking the frivolous flaggers seems like the best idea, but then someone has to decide what's frivolous.

I found twitter to be better than an RSS feed for gathering interesting news in one place. Via RSS, you get ALL the posts from a blog or publication. Via Twitter, you can set up lists to follow a writer - what they post, what they read, what they think about what they read.

This will be rectified when the radical lefties tag some well-known "centrist" liberal as a spammer for expressing insufficiently lefty opinions (probably right around the time the charges are dismissed or Zimmerman is acquitted).

Nothing of much interest. Lester did produce an order, on April 23, that the Court Files were to be unsealed except for witness names and addresses. I don;t know what sort of "improved" motion O'Mara expects to provide, that will result in a different order, or if he is (okay, this is sarcasm coming up) planning move for redaction on a document by document basis.

But, this campaign is what happens when free speech is ignored and ideas can be stopped by calling them spam."

"This campaign", to me, means the current situation to include the Obama Administration, AGW Fraud, Peak Oil, the Anglo-French coup in Libya and the peaceful and wonderfully democratic overthrow of Field Marshal Mubarak, replaced by Field Marshal Tantawi.

If we wish this campaign to end, then we should all honor the well thought suggestion of the occupoopers and mark tomorrow, Commie Day, as the beginning of a six month deferral of all but necessary purchases.

A hundred years from now the world will still be trying to recover from Obama's messes. That's with Pres Romney rescinding every Obama order on the first day of his term in 2013: Plus throwing out every leftist Obama has appointed or allowed to enter the federal payroll.

"PHOENIX (CBS 5) -CBS 5 News has learned exclusive details on a forthcoming announcement from Sheriff Joe Arpaio concerning his team's work on President Barack Obama's eligibility to hold office.

Mike Zullo, the lead investigator for the Maricopa County Cold Case Posse, provided some insight into what will be released later this spring.

"Let me put it this way," Zullo said. "I wouldn't be doing it to give them a rehash."

CBS 5 News pressed Zullo for answers upon learning that he and the sheriff are planning another news conference in late May or early June. The announcement would come roughly three months after Arpaio released the results from his six-month probe into the validity of the president's birth certificate. The controversial announcement: the document is a fake.

"We didn't make a mistake the first time. We're not making a mistake this time," Zullo said.

The new findings will include data on Obama's 1980 registration for the draft."

Your "Pieces" column was off the charts, even by your great standards. But this was the cherry on the top:

We express our sincere appreciation to Acme people countrywide for their commitment, creativity, and hard work on behalf of the company. Working as a team and with the continued input of the Administration punkocracy, Acme people drive the company's success. We thank them and the Obama Administration for a job well done.

'Hillary and I have spent the last three and a half years cleaning up after other folks' messes,' Obama told donors, referring to President George W. Bush's foreign policy.

It's a particularly vile sort of person who can only promote himself by dumping on others. Apart from the character flaw, it's as sure a sign as any of zero real accomplishment. It's a lot like "Jobs created or saved": If employment growth doesn't materialize, you just claim success by magnifying how bad it "would have been."

So Gallup has begun to get its poll in line with reality. They were using something like a D + 7 weighting, which is ridiculous especially when RAS has it several months running of polling with large samples that has a R + 3 finding.

I regretably tuned into the Scott Van Pelt radio show a while back and he and the other dude were giving some DEEP THOUGHT on why the white demographic was not watching the NBA in the percentages they once were. You'll never guess why. Never, never, never...

The odd thing about that is that pro athletes tend to be a conservative bunch, especially adjusting for race. I think they instinctively understand things like rule of law, outcomes based on merit, rewarding effort, and so on.

I did say adjusting for race. Charles Barkley was a Republican, though I heard he may have slipped. Wilt Chamberlain was a Republican. Lots of examples of black Republicans in other sports (Jackie Robinson).

Lyle, this is a bit murky because it includes executives, but it says 61% of NBA political donations have gone to Dems. That seems pretty low for a league that's what, 80% black? And many of the execs have been the biggest Dem donors (Larry Stern, Herbert Kohl).

My experience in running a PAC is that corporate PAC's tend to judge the wind and play both sides against the middle. But individual contributions are very much ideological. With the GOP in charge of the House and moving closer to the Senate, you watch how the corporate PACs will unbalance toward the GOP especially committee chairs. That is why being Speaker is so damn important since he/her controls committee chairs.

Obama will raise beaucoup money from individuals and less from corporate PACs because they see Congress going GOP and they know if that is the case he can't hurt them if re-elected by individual donations. As the campaigns tighten and the polls start moving toward Romney the money will start to reverse course for some individuals but the corporate and special interest PACs will have already bought in to the GOP controlling and restraining any 2nd term (if there is one).

Ryan Zinke, a former Commander in the US Navy who spent 23 years as a SEAL and led a SEAL Team 6 assault unit, said: ‘The decision was a no brainer. I applaud him for making it but I would not overly pat myself on the back for making the right call.

‘I think every president would have done the same. He is justified in saying it was his decision but the preparation, the sacrifice - it was a broader team effort.’

Mr Zinke, who is now a Republican state senator in Montana, added that MR Obama was exploiting bin Laden’s death for his re-election bid. ‘The President and his administration are positioning him as a war president using the SEALs as ammunition. It was predictable.’